“We have been set up,” she said. “We are royally screwed.”
The teenager’s room we were in had a nice collection of jeans, one pair in particular that fit like a glove. It was nice to be able to change clothes. The wife had some name brand tennis shoes that were a pretty close fit as well. Jane had discovered a desk calendar in the study where the trip departure and return flights were written down, it seems we would have to leave this place tomorrow night. We were getting bored watching the news, they just had a series of talking heads venting on anything remotely non-human. It was bound to happen sooner or later was the common theme. Supes evil, humans good. They were now speculating about Rolfe and word came that he had been taken in for questioning. They were trying to find out what he knew about me. It seems I was a spy for London Jane now. A police spokesman said they had not ruled out a connection to the Summer Queen being also involved. I needed a secure phone, I wanted to talk to Sarah.
Morning was approaching and Jane would have to sleep. It would be taking a chance but we could see no other way. I would venture out during the day, trying to get some information and looking for a more permanent hiding place. Jane would sleep and I would return at sundown. I was going to ward the place but it would not stop someone who was determined to get in. I needed a disguise and Jane would help me dress for the part. As soon as it was decided, my shifter side kicked in to help. I looked young, but I needed to look even younger, I would be venturing out as a teenager or young college student, complete with backpack and books sitting at the foot of the bed. Jane wanted to cut my hair, it was the most distinctive feature in that picture they kept showing, I explained to her that it would not be necessary, my shifter side would take care of it. Over the next hour my skin darkened, my hair got short and turned bleached blonde. I now looked like I spent hours daily having fun in the sun. I lost the tattoo and my fangs receded. Jane had found a Wake Forest Athletics cutoff sweatshirt to go with my jeans, tennis shoes, and backpack.
* * * *
At five am they raided the Portmeirion. Hans and Markus barred the front door; you could see the Captain arguing with them holding some papers in their face, what could only be a search warrant. The press had been tipped off again, it was on every major station. I noticed a dagger in one of the twin’s boots, it looked suspiciously like mine. I sure hoped so, Markus knew it was important to me and what it could do. I was betting Rolfe had thought of this. If they took my espresso machines, I was going to be pissed. A caption at the bottom of the screen announced that these were my personal shifter bodyguards, I was betting the Pack would now be under suspicion as well. They had tried to kill me many times and had not succeeded, but this new approach was working. I was being effectively killed by the press. People believe anything they see on the news and Jane, as well as Jade and anyone associated with us was now collateral damage. Jane called it a work of art; we were being done in by a PR supertanker.
Jane was getting drowsy, dawn would be here in just a few minutes. “Tell me about Rolfe,” she said.
“I thought I was in love,” I replied. “You should have seen him. A witch experimenting with necromancy had raised nine zombies from a rural graveyard, lost control of them, and they wandered off looking for flesh. A family with two small kids lived out that way and had just driven home and seen a girl that had been on a bicycle that had been attacked near their driveway, she was pretty mangled and eaten up. They called 911 and Rolfe took the call to investigate. He was between partners at the time, probably a good thing. They must have heard them as they arrived and made the call, when Rolfe got there, the door was broken in, the parents were in the kitchen, almost completely cleaned of flesh. The two kids were huddled at the end of the hallway, shaking and crying. Rolfe put himself between the zombies and the kids, calling for backup at the same time. Thirty minutes it took, for backup to arrive.”
“Were you one of the kids?” Jane asked.
It was the obvious question. “No,” I replied. “I was there for the parents, I didn’t have a physical presence. It’s a long story, different from this one, and a story for another day.”
“Like remote viewing?” she asked.
“Similar to that,” I said. “Anyway, Rolfe pulled out that monster gun of his and went through the clip, as well as a second clip in just a matter of seconds. It just made a mess of the walls and made the zombies look even uglier. He shifted in a blur, bits and pieces of his clothing flying off him. Eight feet and nine hundred pounds of shifter-strong Kodiak bear, towering almost to the ceiling and about as wide as the hallway itself now stood between the kids and the zombies. Zombies don’t know fear, they are not very intelligent, all they know is flesh and this was a lot of flesh in front of them. They were climbing over each other to get to him, just two or three could attack at the same time. One would latch on to him as he ripped another one apart. He was pulling their legs and arms off, sometimes their heads, as he would lift one up he would be lifting another that had attached itself to his arms. Occasionally, he would just swat one to the side, causing them to splatter against the walls of the hallway, putting dents and gashes in the walls. This just made the zombies more determined, of course, as they lost the flesh they had gained from the parents, they just became hungrier and more aggressive. It only takes a few moments for zombie limbs to reattach themselves, I think it didn’t even seem to matter if one zombie’s arm attached itself to another zombie with a missing arm. They were eating him alive, he was losing bits of flesh and was bleeding in dozens of places. On one part of his arm you could see they had taken out a big chunk exposing the bone underneath. He kept silent, just continuing, showing no sign of pain or panic, just roaring in anger occasionally as he tore another one apart. Shifters heal fast, especially Alphas but not fast enough for that kind of punishment.”
“When help finally arrived,” I continued, “he was swaying from his injuries and lack of blood. He was basically out on his feet but kept going by sheer willpower, long enough for his backup to net one zombie at a time from behind and drag them outside where they were hit with flamethrowers, fire being one of the few ways to kill one of these things. The zombies never turned around, they kept their entire focus on him. It was courageous, impossible, amazing, I just have no words to describe it. He let himself collapse as the last one was dragged away. Even with his healing power, he was a month recuperating, then he spent three years tracking down the witch that had done this thing, finally seeing that witch put in jail.”
“You fell in love with an ideal,” Jane said. “The best of that which makes us love.”
“Yes,” I said. “I didn’t realize it at the time. What I just knew would happen has not happened. We have become friends, quickly, and there was an initial spark of attraction, which is now a friendship instead. I guess I should be happy with that. I can think of no better friend to have.”
“Did he ever kiss you?” she asked.
“Never been kissed,” I replied.
Chapter Sixteen
I wasn’t sure she had heard the last thing I had said; she was now asleep.
Time to go, I thought, leaving through the broken french doors and making my way out of the community, easily climbing over the fence at the same wooded place we had entered. I had some cash on me and as soon as I made it out of the residential area, I had a man at a convenience store call a cab for me. My tendency to overstock and plan for possible glitches was going to payoff.
I had rented a stall at a mini warehouse, paying cash a year ahead under a phony name, storing some furniture there, mainly an old beaten up looking desk and some chairs and other miscellaneous junk. Everything I needed was in the desk, it was warded extensively and locked. I had both the warehouse key and the desk key in my purse, now in my backpack. I paid the cab driver with a nice tip and asked him to wait around a few minutes as I walked down to my spot. Inside the desk, I had cash, disposal cell phones already set up through some phony prepaid accounts, and a few weapons. I took all of the cas
h and six of the phones, not taking a chance with taking the weapons. I made my first call standing there at the warehouse door. My personal banker had been expecting my call.
“I saw the news last night,” he said as I asked him to execute our planned exit strategy. “I have already moved your money off shore and overseas as we discussed. They will not get a penny.”
I gave him a series of numbers, he knew what they were for. He would be on the next flight out, probably under an assumed name. I wished him enjoyment in his early retirement. I crushed that phone in my hands and made my next call.
“Sarah,” I said, “It’s Linda, from the witch council. I was wondering if you could tell me what is going on down there?” I had given it a fake accent, but with just a tiny push of magic so she would know who was really calling.
“There is no proof of witch involvement,” Sarah replied. “They keep hinting at it but no direct accusations yet. The Mayor has asked that Chris and I be taken off the case because of our association with Jade but our agent in charge is fighting it. I just had a call from him saying that it might be inevitable, however. Somebody is pulling some big strings at FBI headquarters. The only thing they have is testimony from the vamp, the one that we were unable to get any information from. Apparently, the Captain and the DA were able to somehow persuade him to talk, behind our backs. We asked to be able to interview the vamp again now that he is talking, but they are stonewalling. Unfortunately, they did not make a tape of this conversation. Jade’s partner was taken in for questioning last night. So far, I haven’t heard anything about that. The Captain personally drove him to the station a few hours ago after they raided Jade’s flat at the Portmeirion.”
“Thanks, Sarah,” I replied. “Keep us updated, please.” I hung up, crushing that phone as well. Sarah had given me some valuable information, hopefully without revealing to anyone monitoring her phone that she had been talking to me. I hated to say it, and I doubt Rolfe had really thought this through, but our beloved Captain was probably up to his eyeballs in this mess. I hoped Rolfe would be okay. Neither he, nor I, had anything to do with this. They were clearing the field of something they considered a threat.
I asked the cab driver to take me to an internet cafe. The first thing I did was buy a six-shot espresso with four pumps of dark chocolate. I was going to need some energy and my system was already clamoring for nourishment. I looked like a student, cramming for an examination. What I needed to do was find a safe base of operations, something that we could use without fear of being detected.
“Google is my friend,” I muttered to myself as I logged in. I even said it three times, sometimes a little minor magic helped. With Google, sometimes you need all the help you can get.
I rented a cabin at Tanglewood using one of my now hidden and in another name accounts. A single, gated entrance that I could ward giving me warning of anyone that would enter looking for me, with the cabin far enough away from the entrance to give us ample time to escape through the woods. WiFi and cable, a winery (I really liked that part), private yet not completely isolated. Both vamps and shifters would have no problem getting to us through the woods, yet any human authorities would come to us by only one direction. There was even an RV park close by and we could move some of Jane’s vamps close by for support and protection. The gate closed at sunset so I would need to rent a van to get Jane there during the day while giving her protection from the sun.
Our story still dominated the news. There had been a press conference where the Mayor had basically put a curfew on the southern territory’s supernatural community. Known supe hangouts and properties had come under attack and demonstrations against witches, fae, shifters, and vamps were going to be non stop today. Several children of witches had been attacked at school, the Mayor had ordered all shifters to stay inside Pack territory until further notice. Most shifters had jobs outside of the territory and this was going to put them under a severe financial strain. As an emergency measure, the mayor had frozen all supe assets in the southern capital with the entire southern territory following his lead. Supe hate was spreading to the northern and western territories as well.
The big news came as I was finishing my search for a base of operations. Evidently, Rolfe had managed to break into the cell holding the vamp that had accused us, killed him, and then managed to escape. His whereabouts were unknown and the cops had orders to track him down and arrest him. His status was listed as armed and dangerous. How convenient, I thought. Accuser dead and Rolfe, I wasn’t sure. Reading between the lines my bet is that he got wind of what was going on and got out of there. They had no intention of bringing him or me for that matter, in alive. Rolfe killing the vamp was pure BS.
I connected to my email through a university proxy my, now retired, banker dude had provided me. I had the usual bunch of junk, as well as a few that were very interesting. Emily had sent me an invite to join her on her next full moon hunt, she was trying to tell me something, I was sure of that but unsure of what she was trying to say. I would have to think about this one some more. She knew they would be monitoring e-mail. The Summer Queen sent me a portion of a poem of Faerie by Sophia White:
winter fairies come
a-calling
faces pressed window panes
twinkling
frost makes lacy prints
glittering
light snow pristine pure
falling
world young life fresh
breathing
winter fairies come
a-calling
Now, this one, I figured out. It was the meeting with the Winter Queen I had been waiting for and I knew how to activate the spell.
So, I had a few things I needed to do today, rent a van, search for Rolfe, and now the Winter Queen. My gut was telling me that the Winter Queen should be my first step but my heart was pushing for me to find Rolfe. I decided to go with my gut, if Rolfe was in hiding, me looking for him might not be the safest thing to do for him or me.
Chapter Seventeen
I needed a fogged-up-by-cold-air window pane. I decided on Walmart. There are many strange creatures and characters that go in and out of Walmart on a daily basis, and I hoped I would be able to pull this one off. I was still dreading the rent-a-van part of my to do list, I did not like the thought that I would soon be driving again, so I hoofed it about a mile to the local Walmart and went straight to the frozen goods section. The pizza aisle looked very promising with several fogged up windows. As unobtrusively as possible, I set wards at both ends that would discourage folks from going down that aisle, a sort of, “this is not the pizza droids aisle you are looking for” section.
Then I had to wait about ten minutes as one rather strange lady had to read the ingredients on almost a dozen different pizza boxes to make her selection and leave the aisle.
I opened the door that offered the most cold fogginess and wrote the Faerie poem in the fae language, inverted as if seen in a mirror.
Then I spoke the poem aloud and gave it a little magical push, thinking Winter Queen and willing my spell to connect. Her image appeared immediately, she looked up, saw me and smiled.
“I have been waiting for your call, Jade,” she said.
“Sorry for the delay, your Grace,” I replied. I could not refer to her as my Queen as I was a member of the Summer Court. “I seem to have gotten quite popular all of a sudden.”
“Make no mistake about it,” the Winter Queen said, “what we have here is another war, this time a war on all of us in the supernatural community, a war that has the sole purpose of eliminating any power and influence we have in your world. The Summer Queen has spoken to me extensively about you and given me the information you provided her. We have been betrayed by a member of my court. I intend to take a hand in this matter personally. We have made great strides since the fae wars, and now all that work is going to come crashing down if we don’t expose this conspiracy for what it is. In this matter, think of me as an ally. I have discussed
this with your Queen and I will partner with you to resolve this issue.”
“I have also partnered with London Jane,” I answered.
“Then we shall indeed make a formidable trio,” she replied and held out her hand to me.
“Your face and your beauty is well known here,” I said, hesitating. I did not want to expose us.
“I have prepared a bit of a glamour that you might appreciate,” she replied, so I took her hand and drew her to me.
Her glamour was very impressive. Standing next to me, was well, me. My identical twin. People would notice yet not even begin to think of us as the Winter Queen and Jade, just as a set of attractive female twins. She even had the blue eyes and clothes down perfectly. I would have a hard time telling us apart if I were not me.
“You may call me Jill for the duration of our efforts here,” she said.
Jill, Jane, and Jade, I thought. “Three is a good number,” I said.
The fae don’t much care for cars and I got a lecture on various cars and metals that they could tolerate without a lot of pain. It seems the Winter Queen had a secret, one she kept from the other fae, she loved to drive.
“I like the speed and power,” she said. “We will drive one of mine.”
I had to laugh, this partnership thing was already turning out to be great. I told her about me and driving not mixing too well. She had a couple of her cars stored in a rented garage just outside of the city limits. The Accura NSX was her favorite. All aluminum and carbon fiber frame and it was sleek and fast.
“Where are we going to put Jane?” I asked. It wasn’t like the van I had considered renting.
“The windows are heavily tinted, blocking the UV rays. We can stuff her in the back seat and cover her up with a blanket. She’ll sleep through the whole thing,” she added.
I didn’t object any further. If she was driving, I was happy. I didn’t realize it at the time but Jill’s plan had me driving later.
Jade Page 9